Bernie Sanders decried low voter turnout in US elections during a Sunday interview, saying: ‘If we got a voter turnout of 75%, this country would be radically transformed.’
Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders reframed his role in the race on Sunday and explained that he has lost primaries in 16 states with high income inequality “because poor people don’t vote”.

Without wavering from his campaign’s insistence that he has a “path to victory”, the senator from Vermont said his goal was to increase voter participation in politics.

“I mean, that’s just a fact,” Sanders said in an interview with NBC News, in response to a question about his losses in states with a large wealth gap. “That’s a sad reality of American society. And that’s what we have to transform.”

Sanders has predicated his campaign on a promise to assuage growing wealth and income inequality in the US, and he has received support from a record number of grassroots donors whose small contributions have consistently added up to monthly fundraising totals that dwarf those of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

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Yet Clinton, owing in part to stalwart support from African Americans, has notched big victories in southern states with some of the lowest median incomes in the country. She has also defeated Sanders in states with vast inequality, including in the New York primary vote last Tuesday.

“We have one – as you know – one of the lowest voter turnouts of any major country on Earth,” Sanders told NBC. “We have done a good job bringing young people in. I think we have done – had some success with lower income people. But in America today – the last election in 2014, 80% of poor people did not vote.”

Sanders appears to have overestimated turnout in the Democratic nominating race. Turnout was measured by Pew Research last month at 11.7% – the highest since 1992, not counting the outlying 2008 cycle, in which enthusiasm for a competitive race between Clinton and Barack Obama drove turnout to almost 20%. Republican turnout was measured at 17.3% of eligible voters, the highest since 1980.

“If we can significantly increase voter turnout so that low-income people and working people and young people participated in the political process, if we got a voter turnout of 75%, this country would be radically transformed,” Sanders said.

In separate interviews, Sanders redefined his intentions of the race and said he intended to increase voter turnout. “What we are trying to do in this campaign,” Sanders told CBS, “with some success, is bring people into the political process.”

“We can change the dynamics of American politics so it is not just big money interests who help elect candidates,” he said, citing his strong support from young people and voters who are not affiliated with a party. “We are the future of the Democratic party.”

Earlier in the day he told CNN that greater participation in elections by low-income and working class voters would “revitalize American democracy”.

“We have got to involve people, and it’s not easy – so many people have given up on the political process,” he said. “Our job is to bring them back.”

He also rejected calls for him to exit the race, including from David Plouffe, a former top adviser to Barack Obama and a currentClinton supporter. Plouffe tweeted this week that Sanders’ quixotic quest for the nomination was “fraud”.

David Plouffe (@davidplouffe)

Sanders has run a stunningly strong campaign fueled by passionate supporters. But raising $$ stating you have path to nomination is fraud.

“David Plouffe is working for Hillary Clinton,” Sanders said. “The idea that we should not vigorously contest this election when the largest state in the USA, California, has not voted … of course we’re going to give every person in this country the right to [decide] what kind of president they want.”

California and five other states hold Democratic contests on 7 June, and the last voting is a week later in Washington DC.

“I think we do have a path to victory,” Sanders said. “We’re going to fight for every last vote until California and the DC primary.”

Sanders declined an invitation from CNN’s host to engage in the speculation about who might be chosen to run as a vice-presidential candidate for the eventual nominees.

“I think that Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump needs to start talking to the real issue facing the American people, and that is that we have a vast level of income inequality,” Sanders said.